Years ago, when we were all living in Japan, one of my friends, A-kun, related the story of when he and another mutual buddy, B-chan, had gone to a branch of Manga no Mori (a famous manga store franchise) in Ikebukuro near the Sunshine 60 Building. The two of them had their own preferences when browsing for Japanese comics so they promised that after half an hour or so, they would meet up near the cashier. A-kun had a pretty wide range of manga that he liked so he most likely went all over the store, but B-chan had specific genres in mind: magical girls, Takarazuka-like classical romances....and BL (boys' love). At the time, he hadn't been aware of that last one.
Well, the thirty-minute window passed by. A-kun was left waiting at the cashier for a few minutes but B-chan wouldn't show up, so he went to search for her. He finally did find her fully ensconced in one of those BL manga and when he approached her from behind to see what she was reading, she was taken by surprise. A-kun swore that B-chan threw away that BL manga like skipping a rock across a river. Apparently, it bounced twice and almost impaled another browser. It was on the level of Mio's own reaction above whenever anyone was about to find out her own love of creating BL. In any case, to her own dread, she was outed. Of course, neither A-kun nor I judged her on that.
In any case, the above preamble ramble was for me to introduce one of the new anime of the season "Ganbare! Nakamura-kun!!"（ガンバレ!中村くん!!...Go for It, Nakamura!）, adapted from a manga that had run for a couple of years in the mid-2010s. I'm not into BL at all but this anime looks pretty darn humorous as young Okuto Nakamura falls hard for classmate Aiki Hirose. As well, I like the old-fashioned style of the design of the characters...reminds me of the 80s.
Heck, the entire design of the opening credits felt like a time warp back to my high school and university days. And then there is the opening theme by Yasuyuki Okamura（岡村靖幸）and former Sexy Zone member Kento Nakajima（中島健人）. It was about thirteen years ago that Okamura came up with one of the coolest and funkiest anison, "Viva Namida"（ビバナミダ）for "Space Dandy"...man, time does fly, doesn't it? And I don't think the singer who has looked like the most dance-crazed corporate section chief had created any more anison until this one in 2026.
Well, with "Shunpatsuteki ni Koi Shiyou", which literally translates as "Let's Fall in Love Right Here and Now!" but whose official English title is "Sudden Spark", we have Okamura creating and arranging the song into another techno funk piece just like "Viva Namida". It's a whole lot shorter than "Viva Namida" but I figure since the song won't officially get onto the market until late May, here's hoping that it will get longer through another verse and/or instrumental bridge. I see that Okamura still likes to cut a rug.
Strangely enough, what got my attention on "Ganbare! Nakamura-kun!!" in the first place was the ending credits sequence. For the ending of each episode, a different old kayo kyoku or J-Pop hit from the Showa and Heisei eras will be played. Episode 1 has the late Kozo Murashita's（村下孝蔵）"Hatsukoi"（初恋）from 1983. Good choice! I always love it when the folks of today happily find out about a Japanese song from yesteryear.
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